books

screenplays

Exile (full-length drama) Finalist, WriteMovies; Quarterfinalist, Fade-In.
LJ lives in a U . S. of A., with a new Three Strikes Law: first crime, rehab; second crime, prison; third crime, you’re simply kicked out – permanently exiled to a designated remote area, to fend for yourself without the benefits of society. At least he used to live in that new U. S. of A. He’s just committed his third crime.

What Happened to Tom (full-length drama) Semifinalist, Moondance.
This guy wakes up to find his body’s been hijacked and turned into a human kidney dialysis machine – for nine months.

Aiding the Enemy (short drama 15min)
When Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.

Bang Bang (short drama 30min) Finalist, Gimme Credit; Quarter-finalist, American Gem.
When a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?

Foreseeable (short drama 30min)
An awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?

Two Women, Road Trip, Extraterrestrial (full-length comedy)
When an independent activist and her frustrated office temp buddy embark on a quest for a chocolate bar, they pick up a hitchhiking extraterrestrial who’s stopped on Earth to ask for directions. They help her get the information she needs – and discover it’s easier to get a gun in this country than a little scientific knowledge – and decide to go with her. To become chocolate bartenders.

Boston Legal: Bang Bang (spec script) Semifinalist,Scriptapalooza.

Balls (short mockumentary 10min)
A hilarious mockumentary about men playing with balls

Here Comes the Bride (5min)
You’ll never get married again.

Let Me Entertain You (5min)
Is it a slippery slope from screen idol to snuff film?

Take Care of Your Mom While I’m Gone (3-5min)
She’s an adult. She needs a ten-year-old to take care of her?

My Life in Danger (short drama 3-5min)
When does attempted rape warrant self-defence of deadly force?

Size Matters (3-5min)
What if women were the taller sex? Ask any short man.

I am Eve (10min)
An examination exposing the irrationality and injustice of Eve’s role in Judaeo-Christianity.

If Then (5-10 min)
The end of our lives as we know them. Can’t say we didn’t see it coming.

Crime of Passion (short drama 3-5min)
The perfect solution to crimes of “passion”

Minding Our Own Business (20 min)
A collection of skits (including “The Price is Not Quite Right,” “Singin’ in the (Acid) Rain,” “Adverse Reactions,” “The Band-Aid Solution,” and “See Jane. See Dick.”) with a not-so-subtle environmental message

The Missing Link (short comedy 3-5min)
Two women and an alien enter a bar…

That a humanities degree is useless for the workforce says more about our workforce than the degree. It says that we value, that we’ll pay for, someone to provide cars, electric toothbrushes, and running shoes. But not beauty and insight.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Imagine a world in which companies had, along with finance departments to look after their money and maintenance departments to keep things clean, art departments to make the place beautiful. Municipalities could have art departments too, right alongside their legal departments and transit departments, to keep the city beautiful. Or entertaining. Or edifying. Depending on your view of the role of art.

Provinces could have, in addition to the Ministries of Environment, Energy, and Revenue, a Ministry of Music. Yes, of course, there is a Ministry of Culture and Recreation, and that’s close. And there are provincial arts councils. Close again. But they’re just administrative bodies: there are no practicing artists on staff whose job it is to do their art. (The Ministry of Environment, on the other hand, has, for example, biologists on staff whose job it is to do biology.)

We’d have municipal and provincial concert halls and theatres and galleries with full complements of staff – that is, full-time paid musicians, playwrights, actors, painters, providing a year-round schedule of daily events. Attendance would be free of charge, just as is driving on the roads.

Imagine a world in which video stores had as many videos of dance performances as of war movies. A world in which poets and short story writers and novelists read in movie theatres. And people paid to get in. As many people. Hell, our lit grads might make a living!

Imagine a world in which we valued knowledge about ourselves as much as knowledge about our money. And we paid philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists as much as we pay financial advisors.

Imagine a PR department hiring a historian to manage the information, to develop true, coherent archives. With intelligent analysis.

We have concert halls, libraries, and museums. We have jobs for musicians, poets, and historians. But we have so many more banks and stores and restaurants. We thus have so many more jobs for business majors (the managers and the accountants) and non-majors (the clerks and waiters), for people whose raison d’être is to make or serve profit – not beauty, joy, insight, or understanding.

Is it truly supply and demand? Do we really have the world we want to have? Yes and no. If we asked the philosophers and psychologists and sociologists, we’d know that we want what we’re used to, so supply creates demand as much as, if not more than, demand creates supply. And we’d know that pressure can modify our wants: customs and marketing strategies can compromise our autonomy if we don’t pay attention. To our real desires, our real goals. To our joys, to our hopes. (Every now and then, I think things may be different in Europe. But how would I know – it’s not the sort of thing that the U.S. or even Canada puts on the news. Around and around…)

And anyway, so what? So what if a humanities degree is useless in the workforce. Not all value need be tangled up with the economy, with business, with the workplace. (Have you mistaken your job for your life?) Not everything has to have a price. Not everything need be, or can be, sold. Or bought. Some things just are. (The recognition and appreciation of beauty and joy. The cultivation of curiosity and interest. The achievement of exhilaration and understanding….)